


My Heart and I

by Sasskarian



Series: Wasteland, Baby (I’m in Love With You) [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Mild Disordered Eating, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28839939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasskarian/pseuds/Sasskarian
Summary: Stumbling into that firefight at the police station, into Danse, was the first thing that felt real since she’d clawed her way out of the Vault. Signs started out subtle— a feather-light touch of fingers, rare smiles that crinkled the eyes and warmed the heart. An absolute battlefield trust that saved both their lives, time and again. And the memory of sinking, drowning, flying on a single kiss that reached through feverdreams to stabilize her.(She’s thought about that kiss for months. Dreamed about it, wondered what it would be like to kiss him for real.)There’s no lying to herself anymore about where they’re heading. Maybe there never had been. And for the first time, there’s no guilt in that.
Relationships: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor
Series: Wasteland, Baby (I’m in Love With You) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894897
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	My Heart and I

If there’s one thing about Evelyn Swann that the entire Commonwealth knows by now, it is her love of music. Silence does not mark Evelyn’s arrival anywhere— instead, the soft tones of Billie Holiday do, crooning about mountains moved for love. Or the sultry voice of Lady Day herself, Ella Fitzgerald, floating around her and the companions like a bubble of the past, dreaming on into the future. Heavy footsteps beat out a tempo contrasting Butcher Pete and his big old ‘knife’ and everywhere she goes, she trails ribbons of jazz and cheer. 

Except for Sanctuary. 

Sanctuary Hills is quiet, depressingly so, despite the power lines strung up like spiderwebs. Radios are turned down, when they even work, and no one hums along to Travis’s lineup here. She’s provided power but there’s no music dancing in the air.

In the house no one lives in, despite the increasing need for beds, Evelyn stares into the ruined depths of the record player with a frown on her face. Nick shuffles in behind her, Codsworth behind him, and Dogmeat noses at her hip with a snuffle, having closed up the procession. With a flurry of servos and muttering, Codsworth goes to work in the kitchen, trying to repair the apocalypse-broken pieces of the house; Nick stands beside her, hovering over her shoulder.

“That’s older than me, doll,” he says by way of a greeting. “Can you fix it?”

“Got you up and running,” she replies with a shrug. “Might’ve been a lawyer but dad was a tinkerer. Never saw a machine he didn’t want to take apart and put back together. You pick stuff up along the way.” 

Memories whirl along neural pathways, visions of herself at her father’s knee, squinting into a gutted computer. Thin, reedy fingers covered in engine oil, laughing next to him as he teaches her about cars, and later, about the bike he swore he’d never let her drive. He’d claimed to hate the thing, but that never stopped him from shoving his hands into its guts with gusto every chance he got. _You take care of this thing,_ he’d said proudly, _and it’ll outlast all of us._ Ironic how true that’s turned out to be: Codsworth had shown her the tarp-covered bike stashed behind the ruins of Nate’s car. It wasn’t perfect, and it certainly wasn’t in driving shape, with age and rust and who knew what else eating it up. But it was still there, and she’d had half a thought about trying to get it running.

For now, though, the record player stares her in the face as if daring her to try fixing it. 

***

Evie chews on her lip as she makes her rounds that day, only vaguely taking notes on what repairs need to be made. Ada and the couple of robots they’ve cobbled together are working on the section of the crops that tries dying with drama, Deacon is making himself useful as a surprisingly gentle babysitter for the few children that have come to call Sanctuary home. Preston can’t be pried away from the guard towers for longer than an hour or two, Piper scribbles another article about the Minutemen, and Danse— falls into step next to her. 

“You’re looking far away today,” he says, giving her hand a quick squeeze before stooping to grab Dogmeat’s ruff and get his daily dose of slobbery dog smooches. 

Evie stops a few paces away, frowning. “Just thinking, I guess.” Dogmeat abandons Danse easily enough, the small saddlebags she’s cobbled together out of an old uniform clinking merrily as he dances around her. 

“Long thoughts?” Their strides match easily now that neither of them wears power armor every hour of the day. 

“Silly thoughts,” she admits, one hand twisting her braid around. “I’m thinking about raiding Sturges’ stash of parts we haven’t found a use for yet.” 

Danse stops, a look of fake horror on his face. “You? Raiding? I knew the Commonwealth would corrupt you some day.” 

Evie laughs and shoves him affectionately. Danse still struggles with his true past, with the knowledge that he wasn’t born from a human body, but he takes pains to smile more, to laugh almost as if in spite of the depression threatening to swallow him up. And even if there’s no music yet, Evie thinks, that laugh is almost as good.

***

“I can’t work like this,” Evie complains, a month later. “Stimpaks should work faster!” 

“They would,” Nick grits out between clenched teeth, “if a certain stubborn lawyer would apply them in time instead of fighting through a broken arm.” He taps along the homemade plaster to check for wet spots. “Now you may have to heal at a normal rate.”

That shuts her up long enough for Nick to loop the sling with the makeshift cast around her neck and tie it off. Evie contemplates biting him for the indignity but decides against it in the end; while his skin might be soft-ish, the metal plating underneath would probably hurt too much. Instead, she sits and she sulks, watching him throw enough of a polite fit that Codsworth gives him enough space in the kitchen to start a cup of tea for her. 

“I don’t want tea,” she grumps, hunching in on herself. 

“You’re Evelyn Swann and you always want tea. Someday, you might succeed at turning into a tea bag at this rate.” Nick doesn’t seem to mind her mood. After traveling with Danse and his intense brooding, the wiry old detective brushes aside anything short of punches to the face or someone shooting at him with nonchalance, and rests a hand on her hair as he sets the steaming cup in front of her. “Stay out of trouble for a little while, okay? I can’t take a wrench to you to fix you up, so let the stimpak work.” 

By the time Nick has left and Dogmeat abandons her with a huffed doggie _I told you so,_ Evie’s mood darkens along with the sky. The cheerful flickering of the newly strung lights along the wall doesn’t touch the moodiness yawning through her, and with a sigh, she stomps down the hallway to curl up on the repaired bed. Her arm aches, her heart aches, and there’s nothing she wants more to fall into sleep and be at peace for the first time since they’d limped back to Sanctuary this time. 

Two hours of frustrated, uncomfortable turning later, Evie finds herself staring back into the depths of the record player, chewing on her lower lip. While she and Nick and Dogmeat had been gone, Sturges had surrendered his stash of spare wires, springs, circuitry, and anything else that might be of potential use. Including a set of tools delicate enough, if a bit rusty, to work around the innards of the player. If Codsworth was powered up, he’d surely be fussing at her to take it easy and rest. And she should, she knows that— but her mind won’t shut up, won’t stop replaying this and other fights, won’t rest. 

So neither can she. 

The dull ache of her arm fades in and out as dawn shines on scattered bits of metal, Evie swearing with color and flair as she fumbles a spring out of her good hand for the third time in an hour. It takes another two, squinting against the sunlight, before she has a few sparking wires tucked and screwed into place. True, the stereo hums alarmingly, like an aircraft from her own lifetime gearing up to take off, but a hum is more than the dead silence from before. She can work with a hum.

“Ha!” she exclaims, slapping the frame of the box in excitement. “Take that, you old scrap heap!”

***

The day Evelyn finds the time capsule she and Nate buried the day of their honeymoon almost sends her spiraling into a depressive tailspin. Despite Deacon’s quirked eyebrow and the empty bags hanging deflated on Dogmeat’s side, she tucks the heavy metal case under her arm and says nothing. When they’re forced to fight, she wastes time setting it on the ground and keeping one foot on it as she shoots, as if the panic that climbs into her throat were real and letting it out of touching range would make it disappear back into the mushroom cloud of the past. 

It isn’t until they arrive back home, two days later than expected from her slowed pace, that she sets it on the lopsided coffee table and lets go of it. Evie tucks her knees up against her chest and stares at it, too tired to even cry. 

Nate’s been gone for decades. Shaun, too. But it still feels so recent, for her, as she shakes the frost off her heart. There’s more room there now, she knows, room for dear friends and furry comfort. And room for a stolen kiss, a fluttering of bruised ventricles and rusty valves that hum with twin tones of excitement and guilt. But some part of her knows that the last of Nate’s ghost lives in that box, locked up with such hope and promises of a life only partially lived. 

For the last week, she’s asked herself every day if she’s brave enough to face that ghost the same way she stared down courtrooms and doesn’t run from super mutants and wild, twisted creatures. 

For the last week, every day’s answer has been the same: no. But Evie’s getting sick of her own bullshit, for once. She’s never been good at wallowing, and by every forgotten god, she’s not going to hone that skill now. So her fingers tremble as she enters the code that pops out a little tray, smear the fingerprint it asks for. 

_Isn’t this misappropriation of Army resources,_ she teases in her memory. _For you, Stormy, I’d steal the whole damn base,_ Nate murmurs back. 

The box hisses as it opens, throwing off centuries of baked dirt and memories, and laying bare the ghosts she’d expected. Photos— faded by time, true, but miraculously intact despite the area radiation— show a happier time. Evie’s cheeks are fuller, rounded in a gleeful smile as Nate in his dress greens swings her into his arms, a sea of faces fading out behind them into the park; it’s a different face from the one she sees in cracked mirrors, a softer face from a softer life. 

Now, Evie’s cheeks are carved from bone, baked in a harsh sun until they glowed gold and sharp. The jut of her collarbone rises higher, arms sleek and strong. Miles and miles of hiking around the jagged Wasteland lengthened and firmed thighs and calves and— quite frankly, if she’s honest— given her a rear to match. She doesn’t starve— no one starves in Sanctuary, not on her damn watch— but there isn’t always time for more than a bite or two between shooting matches and running for her life. 

_Then again_ , a guilty whisper slithers up her shoulder, _you don’t care for your body much. It betrayed you, unresponsive as Nate died. You’ve never forgiven it._

...there’s an uncomfortable truth to that. It looks like selflessness on the surface, putting herself between her people and a few more meals for those who still hunger. But deeper, there’s a dark, cold part of Evie still frozen in that fucking tube, still seeing her sluggish body as a traitor, a weapon used against her that cost too much in the end. 

Looking at that first photo, Evie vows to put an end to it. That Evie, Nate’s Evie, is dead, burned up in the end of the world. But some part of her still lives, and it’s time to… _live._ Not just survive, not just scrabble for one more day in the Wastelands, but to live. 

Under the stack of wedding photos is something new. Something that she hadn’t put in the case. Nate had gone digging for it, opened it without her and added things. Some small, quiet corner of her heart shudders with it, but she forces herself to read the note, follow the spikes and lines of his atrocious handwriting. 

_Happy Anniversary! I know how much you love your music collection, so I had some of your favorites copied over while you weren’t watching. Love you, Stormy._

Each word strikes her heart, pinging against it like it’s made of the same lead as their box. Their grave, a metal casket with the empty shells of who they’d once been. Her fingers brush a stack of holotapes, dozens and dozens of new songs and despite the twist in her gut, the sorrow is softer than it should be. True, her chest feels like it’s been filled with metal, but like a hug from across the shroud of death and nuclear war, there’s warmth creeping along the edges. 

Evie takes a deep breath, embracing the love, the loss, and the familiar specter of grief. But instead of breaking her, this last, fleeting kiss from the past seems like permission, somehow. She and Nate, the people she’d known and loved, the future they’d promised each other, that was all gone. But music had survived. Music played across the Commonwealth, uniting all the lost and lonely souls. And that has her eyes burning. 

This is nothing new, not after a year here, and though her eyes still well up every now and again, she scoots the box to the floor and folds herself down by the stereo; there’s more reason now to get it working. There’s no one who walks through the Wasteland who hasn’t lost something or someone. She can’t fix that, can’t bring their lost loves back any more than she can bring Nate back. But she can add a little strength to the bars of sound that remind everyone they’re not alone.

*** 

Evie hears the tell-tale hiss of power armor outside the door and resists the urge to smooth a hand over her dress. It’s been years since she’s worn anything like this, even before the Vault: most of her court cases had been won in suits, and her pregnancy was a long blur of worn out cotton tees and several stolen pairs of Nate’s sweats. Without a word, even without the Sight-enhancing drugs, Mama Murphy had breezed in last week, smiling as she handed Evie a bundle of fabric and breezed back out. 

Nick— the only person to see it— gave her a wolf-whistle when she held it up, citing the drape of lace sweeping from the shoulders down the back as “one hell of a classy chassis.” It curls around her throat before fluttering down over a fitted neckline to make a keyhole effect (which, of course, she imagines Hancock having a ball making innuendo over), and the hem sits high enough on her thigh to make her nervous. 

Danse doesn’t bother knocking anymore, but she knows the moment he crosses her threshold: the air around her _zings,_ shot through with electricity and tension only enhanced by his harsh inhale. And like that, Evie can shove her nerves down to a quieter range. She turns to face him, pleased by the flush of his cheeks as he sweeps his eyes over her. Danse’s hands fall limp to his sides and he clears his throat, blushing again. 

“I, uh, didn’t know we were dressing for the occasion,” he says, sheepishly. “At least the uniform’s clean?”

Evie smiles, warmth and affection winding through her. “It’s dinner, Danse, not a state function,” she says, walking around the couch to take his hand. “You look good anyway.” And oh, he does look good. Whatever else she thinks of her troops, the denim of the Minutemen clings in all the right spots, and the two undone buttons on his shirt collar draw the eye pleasingly. He looks… relaxed, her paladin, finally shaking the Brotherhood’s poison and finding a way among the settlement guards. 

“I’m afraid it’s not fancy,” she says. “But the last hunt netted us a wild brahmin, so I claimed one of the cuts. And while razorgrain isnt as, uh, smooth as pre-war flour, it makes a pretty tasty pasta.”

“Did you make this?” Danse asks, eyes wide. 

Evie laughs as she sits and lights a candle, still feeling the pleasant weight of his hand in hers even after letting go. “No. I don’t cook. Survived law school on dodgy takeout and my bodyweight in fries from the cafeteria.” Her smile runs warm, the sting barely present. “Nate was the cook in the house and kept us from starving.” 

“Hancock,” she continues, tossing the pasta in the tato sauce, “is surprisingly good for more than just cooking up new and exciting chemical trips. When I told him I wanted to,” here she stumbles, cheeks heating, “spend some time with you, he offered to cook.” 

Danse’s brow scrunches at the thought. “Should I check for drugs, then?” he asks, but chuckles any insult in the joke away. “He’s a good guy, for helping you.” 

“Aw.” Evie flutters her lashes, exaggerating the gesture. “You called him a guy, I’m so proud of you.” 

Red spots flush high on his cheekbones but he nods, picking up a fork with no hesitation. In the months since Danse learned that his name, once upon a lifetime, had been M7-97, he’s wrestled with the Brotherhood programming his world had been shaped from. Evie doubted he’d ever be over his hatred of the mutants, but tension between Danse and the friends that defied the Brotherhood’s standard of human was quieter, easier now. Nick was now “the detective,” Hancock “a guy,” and Deacon “that annoying little scrap of metal,” which still needs some work, but hey, credit where it’s due and all that. 

Truthfully, Hancock cooking while she’d perched on the counter and pestered him with questions made her want to learn more than how to burn water. Especially if it resulted in that warm, content glow in Danse’s eyes. 

Evie laughs and reaches over, wiping a spot of red sauce from the corner of his mouth, reveling in the skipjump her heart stutters on when Danse brushes the faintest kiss across her fingers. 

She’s not a fool. Any naivete Evelyn Swann had survived the end of the world with has long been browbeaten out of her; the naive don’t survive long among the ruins of Boston. Stumbling into that firefight at the police station, into Danse, was the first thing that felt real since she’d clawed her way out of the Vault. Signs started out subtle— a feather-light touch of fingers, rare smiles that crinkled the eyes and warmed the heart. An absolute battlefield trust that saved both their lives, time and again. And the memory of sinking, drowning, flying on a single kiss that reached through feverdreams to stabilize her. 

(She’s thought about that kiss for months. Dreamed about it, wondered what it would be like to kiss him for real.)

There’s no lying to herself anymore about where they’re heading. Maybe there never had been. And for the first time, there’s no guilt in that. 

Danse’s eyes widen when she stands and takes his hand. “I have something to show you,” she says softly. “A pet project. I’ve been working on it for a while.”

The stereo crackles to life as she flips the switch, activating the mismatched parts that somehow came together to make a whole. And if that isn’t a metaphor for Sanctuary, she laughs to herself, she’ll eat her power armor. 

She hits a button, switching the input from radio to holodisk, and smiles as Ella’s rich, smoky voice pours from the speakers. “Do you know how to dance, Paladin Danse?”

Danse traces a finger, hesitant and trembling, along the line of her back. “Never was much of a dancer. Against regulations, and all.”

“Well,” Evie says, turning, smiling. She guides his hand to her waist, keeping his other palm pressed to hers. “I happen to be an _expert_ at breaking regulations, I’ll have you know.”

He rests his cheek against the top of her head, chuckling. “Don’t I know it. Maybe you can teach me.”

Despite his words, Danse moves well, following her lead as they sway to song after song. And maybe it’s foolish to think of battlefields and the rhythm of a constant war when she’s safe, content and actually happy for the first time in waking memory. But she can’t help it. There’s a language here, a trust built through battles and watches, an unspoken symphony that winds around and through them. Words aren’t just useless here, they’re unnecessary— words get in the way, conversational tripwires that could turn something natural to awkward. 

It doesn’t surprise her when Danse takes the lead as easily as if he’d been born on a dance floor, guiding their pace now. He’s a fast learner, her paladin. 

It’s natural, then, to loop her arms around his neck as the song finishes, to slow and then stop on the driftwood floor. They’re almost of a height, Evie realizes, and that’s the last conscious thought before she kisses him. 

This, this is so much better than a half-memory. His lips are dry, not quite chapped, against hers. Without realizing it, Evie slides her hands up, curling into his hair as he presses closer. And then, like a sigh, Danse slants his mouth and kisses her for real. Whatever hesitancy she might have imagined, expected, disappears. 

There’s no apocalypse-scarred house, no refugee filled community. Even the flickering candlelight falls away, because Danse fills her senses, shoves out all other distractions. Because Danse kisses like he fights, powerful and skilled, taking no prisoners as he mows through defenses. This isn’t how she’d meant to kiss him for the first time, but oh, she’s not complaining. Not with the way his teeth feel against her bottom lip, the taste of him filling her mouth, and the unflinching grip he has on her hips. 

And then, like the fading bridge of a song, he gentles, coaxing a contented moan from her as he changes tactics. When he pulls away, they both draw in ragged breaths, shuddering. The sounds of reality wash back in like high tide, except reality has shifted now. Everything looks different, somehow, clearer and vivid, as if Sanctuary had been done up in a setting dress of grays until this exact moment. 

And nothing is as changed as Danse himself. 

Those brown eyes are blown wide, drinking her in like she’s the only thing in the world. Black curls lay disheveled on his brow, fluttering out from his neck where she’d grabbed, and red colors the shell of his ears as he breathes. There’s no pretending anymore that this connection between them is anything other than what it is: two people slowly falling into each other’s orbit. A kiss that steals the senses can’t be blamed on a fever, on a whim, or brushed away. 

It’s real, this time. Painfully, beautifully real. 

Danse reaches for her cheek, running the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “Was that what I think it was?” he asks quietly. 

“Can’t you hear the music?” she teases, nodding at the stereo as it plays on, oblivious to the world-shattering tension: _My heart and I decided, if you’d like it, we’d like it too._

“I’m not him, Evelyn,” he says. “I can’t be. Are you okay with that?”

Evie pauses, taking a look around the living room. Outside, the sun is setting over the hills, throwing red light and shadows across them on its way. Inside, she can still pick out the smell of fresh paint on the repaired bookshelves, the sharp tang of tato scenting the air. The floor creaks under her feet as she takes a half step until she’s against him once more and runs her hand up his chest, cupping his neck as she leans her forehead against his. This, she thinks. This is living, not just surviving. 

“The ghosts are resting,” she murmurs, sighing a little as the truth settles into the marrow of her bones. “There’s no one here but you and me, Danse.”

The radio plays on as Danse bends his head to kiss her again, soft and slow. And for the first time in too long, Sanctuary’s air fills with the music of home. 


End file.
